


My One and Only

by Ais (mikaaislin)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Canon Gay Character, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:20:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikaaislin/pseuds/Ais
Summary: He cannot see me. He cannot possibly see me...And yet, his eyes return.Centered on me."Shadow?" he asks quietly, tentatively into the night.I stand perfectly still, covered by the cloak of darkness. His eyes flicker to the attacker and his lips twitch. "Shadow? Are... Are you there, Shadow?"Had I breath, it would be held.





	My One and Only

I see him standing in the twilight, dark hair brushing his shoulders like a distant waterfall. He laughs and shifts his weight, almost as if he can feel my presence. 

I watch him every night, now. And I think he knows.

He would have seen me once, had I not been hidden. He looked straight my way, and his beautiful hazel eyes shown in the moonlight like emeralds rising out of the sea. I would have caught my breath, if I breathed. If I were human still. But as soon as the moment came, it was past, and he was talking once more to _him._  

To this man Ely may love but who doesn't love him back. He will never see the one who _truly_ loves him, for I will never show myself to his innocence.

Ely turns once more in my direction, lingering on the shadows concealing my form. I do not move, but it wouldn't matter. He will never see me unless I want him to. His eyebrows furrow down, his warm features portraying a puzzled cant. His right hand begins to reach my way, and I almost step back. 

He cannot see me. He _cannot!_  I have not willed it so...

The unwanted grabs Ely's hand and pulls it closer. Ely startles, and turns away. A faint shake of his head, and Ely's attention is diverted. 

Safe. 

Still, I do not like being saved by that man that is only using Ely. I have seen the unwanted with other men, whom he tells are his ‘one and only.' 

Justin.

It disgusts me to share the name, although I can find solace in the knowledge that it was my middle name given to me as a child. Now that I am of the undead, I rarely use that name. It has become as translucent as the human I used to be. A ghost of my past that I will never again reach.

Ely turns to Justin with a smile plastered upon his face, and it is the first time I know that he does not truly love him. _Why are they together, if neither loves the other?_ I would not waste my time on someone I did not love. I would not stand here, watching his perfect being, if it weren't for how I feel about him.

They both turn after a few spoken words. I could listen if I chose. But I will not. Their conversations can be private, if nothing else in Ely's life is. I will leave the words to his lover between the two of them. 

That is the only thing I can do for him, besides watch over and protect him.

A few steps down the street and they are at Justin's apartment. They pause on the steps, and it is just as well because I have to adjust my position in order to better see my Ely. 

Justin has Ely's hand in his and begins to pull him up the stairs, with the ultimate destination no doubt being his room. I do not need heightened senses to guess the contents of the conversation being held. My lip furls unconsciously at the thought of the two of them together. 

Ely deserves more than Justin. He deserves more than me. He deserves the moon on satin and silk, suspended in a sky of black velvet and diamonds. 

And I would give him that, if I could.

Thankfully, he pulls his hand away. I nod to myself, letting my jealousy subside. The night sucks in my heat and I know I would shiver were I still what I once was. They both stop, and Ely cocks his head. The cool wind seems uncanny. Ominous. Like the foretelling of a terrible battle that none shall decipher in time. The moment passes once more, and he shakes his head. They speak for quite some time, but Ely eventually wins his way free of Justin's clutches. 

I smile at my beloved's ways. He will let you know what he thinks. It is one of the many reasons I love him. So many of my kind hide their ways now, so many wear the mask of humanity like tomorrow's trend. Ely would not. Ely is pure, and honest. 

Ely leaves and I do too. I shadow him like the guardian I am. His house is only a few blocks away when I first hear the noise—footsteps, hidden to any but a vampire's ears. I sneer at the stealth this person is attempting as I heighten my senses to see. Two blocks off to the right, in front of Ely's home. 

Quick and light; stumbling like a madman. 

A vampire. Hungry.

I quicken my pace, so I am even closer to Ely's disposal. He will not be harmed this night. He will never be harmed with me here. 

My smile would likely look gruesome if anyone other than the shadows of night could see. Ely whistles a soft tune, oblivious to this danger, and I think to myself that surely my smile now turns quietly to fondness. 

He is so beautiful. 

He is so perfect. 

I wish I had found him earlier. I wish he could stay with me, forever. But I would never make him live with this eternal curse.

He is closer to home, closer to the footsteps. Do not fear, Ely. I will protect you—I promise I will. The footsteps lurch to a clumsy stop. The figure goes quiet for some time before scurrying off. 

Attempt to ambush _Ely?_ No. I will not allow it. His raven hair will be my beacon in the storm. If I should lose my way, I need but think of his beauty and I will have all the incentive I need.

We reach his house. I know exactly where the figure is, but he doesn't know where _I_ am. He will never win.

Ely mounts the steps, his keys jingling softly in the dead of the night. His whistling stops as he grumbles at the door, which refuses to open. The figure moves slightly, and I tune the entirety of my attention to him. Scrawny, crazed, and on the verge of frenzying, it seems.

My whole body drops into a spring, ready to pounce on my prey. He squats with his bony arms dangling in front of him. With a cry, he bounds across the ground. Aiming for Ely. 

Everything slows. 

I leap from my position, putting all my strength into my legs. My blood seems to heat within me at the thought of someone trying to harm Ely—maybe even _turn_ him! Ely cries out, falling back to the protection of the door jamb and into his house. I have but a moment to register the slamming of the door, to know my Ely is temporarily safe, before I am embattled for his future.

The attacker and I hit with a resounding blow. The echoes reverberate down the street and back, strengthened by a low growl like that of a mother bear protecting her children. It comes back to me several times before I register the growl to be mine.

"Stay. Away. From. Him." I gutter.

The attacker falls back and pounces at me again. I twirl to the side, dodging his clumsy punch. He is thirsty and yearning; he is unable to think clearly. 

My advantage.

My body seems to twist in on itself as I pull up from beneath his arms and get a perfect shot at his jaw. Bones crunch at my strength, and he screams in fury. His blood froths onto me like crimson foam from the sea. I pull my arm back for another punch, and double over at the sick feeling of warmth on my stomach. A quick glance down reveals a wicked dagger gleaming in the moonlight. I do not have time to pull it out so I step back, narrowly dodging the swipe of his second dagger. 

If he thinks he's the only one who has tossed a few knives...

I draw the dagger at my back. A thrust misses but gives him the chance to hit the knife in my stomach sideways, wrenching an even deeper hole in my body. I grit my teeth and growl. 

He will not better me.

I swipe the dagger in front of his face, and he bends backwards. I steal his dagger from his slackened hand and slice him straight across the middle. Our blood pools on the ground, splashing as our dance for undeath resumes within our sanctuary. 

His black eyes go from angered to determined and I adjust. His movements become suddenly more precise, seemingly more intentional. 

But no, I know it is purely instinct now. 

For every swipe I get on him, he gets four nicks on me. The fight goes on forever, it seems. A few times I stumble, nearly fall. 

But Ely needs me.

We are both burgundy monsters, slipping from form to form now. I fake a fall back, but he notices my tactic and strikes me squarely in the collarbone with his dagger. The blow staggers me. My energy is waning—I am already becoming hungry and the sight of blood is drawing the beast from within out with a vengeance. With a last grasp of self-control, I realize I must end this now. Yanking the dagger out of my bones, I stand still, knowing he will get one wild, last attack on me before I can take finish our fight. Bracing, I throw his dagger back at him. He dodges; slamming into me with a blow that should have taken me down. 

But I am as determined as he is now. While he twists to dodge my anticipated move, I find the perfect opportunity. With a cry like the banshees of the legends of yore, I stab down and find his heart. He stops completely, his momentum drawing him into the reservoir of our lifeblood. Frozen in his permanent dodge, I wearily reach down for a littered dagger, and behead him. 

Cheap it may be, but I cannot save Ely any other way.

At the thought of my beloved, I look for him. _He lived, didn't he? I heard him go into his house, did I not? That was not a fabric of hopeful delirium? Oh, he has to have lived!_  

But I don't see his smiling form anywhere. 

 _In his house,_ I tell myself, _he is merely in his house. Do not fret._

My vision seems to bleed crimson.

I need to feed. 

Desperately. 

I glance down at the attacker, and thank any deity listening that I did not think of him before I beheaded him. Cannibalism is not acceptable among our kind, even at a time like this.

Stumbling away from the carnage, I seek out someone— _anyone_ —to feed me. A man passed out in a nearby park suits me well, and he is gone in no time. Healing my wounds and removing the dagger, I hide in the shadows once more, and make my way back to Ely's home.

The deceased attacker is still there, as is his blood. 

And Ely is there. 

He is surveying the carcass with a delicately disgusted expression. As I approach, he looks around, his eyes straying to my position. 

He cannot see me. He cannot _possibly_ see me... 

And yet, his eyes return. 

Centered on me.

"Shadow?" he asks quietly, tentatively into the night. 

I stand perfectly still, covered by the cloak of darkness. His eyes flicker to the attacker and his lips twitch. "Shadow? Are... Are you there, Shadow?"

Had I breath, it would be held.

"Please," he says, "I know you are. I… I know you've been following me for some time now. I can _feel_ you. Just…. Could you please come out? So I know I'm not crazy." 

He laughs at the last—the exasperated chuckle of one talking to themselves, alone, and suddenly aware of how they might seem to another. 

I hesitate. 

He should not see me. I told myself I would never reveal myself to him, and yet... 

He looks so vulnerable. 

How can I leave him there, frightened by this blood, this body, with no explanation in sight?

I reach up, try to wipe more of the blood off of my face, and step out of the shadows. 

He jumps at my abrupt appearance, but I see a smile curve the edges. Shaky, but there.

"There's nothing wrong with being crazy," I say gruffly.

He seems startled by that, and I wonder if he believed I couldn't speak. He looks at me, then the body, and back to me. His back straightens; perhaps a portent of courage.

"I've been calling you Shadow ever since I realized you were there. I know. Stupid. But you always hid in the shadows, so it seemed appropriate." 

He laughs that soft laugh again and rubs at the back of his neck. I can see a faint blush creep across his cheeks.

I smile softly at him. He is so perfect. So full of the innocence we all once had, before it was taken. The innocence I wasn't even aware I had until I lost it, and everything I love.

Except for him. Except for Ely. 

I will never lose him. He will always be in my memory, no matter how many more centuries I live.

His gaze flickers across my form and those beautiful eyes widen. "You're hurt!"

I glance down. Blood covers me like a second skin. "Please don't fear. I healed myself already. It looks far worse than it is." 

I am still across the street from him but the moonlight seems to be good enough for him to see me. It's as if he is connected to me.

He hesitates again, and I think I must have scared him. What am I doing, talking to him like this? If the others find out, it will surely be deemed a breach of our protocol. The only way out will be to kill or turn him, and I will do neither.

"Look..." He shifts his weight. "I don't know if you eat or anything like that, but..." 

His voice trails off into the night and I find myself taking a step forward. His chin trembles, and tears fall down his cheeks. I cross the distance and hold him in my arms before I realize what I am doing. He grips me and his ear presses against where my heart should beat rhythmically in my chest. 

"I'm sorry," he breathes, "I'm sorry. I thought I could handle, but... I've just never seen..."

And I realize my error in leaving the body there. It isn't just a body. It's a body with no head, soaking in its own blood.

Of course.

Of course, how could I forget? The innocence I so love cannot possibly understand such a gruesome scene. 

I have done this to him, my sweet Ely. My strong Ely, who does not waver.

I am the reason his cheeks are wet, and his form trembles.

I  hold him as comfortingly as I know. "I'm sorry," I say, words not nearly enough. "I wanted to help you, but..."

"It isn't that--" The blood on me does not seem to bother him as he sucks in a breath, catches it, and is unable to retain a trembling release. "I've been having dreams about you."

I stiffen. Dreams? About _me?_

It is as if he can read my mind. But then, my thoughts are evident in the tightening of my arms. 

"I know," he says, despairingly. "I thought I was crazy, too."

 _I don't think you're crazy,_ I want to tell him, but he is already continuing.

"I dream about you in so many ways, but last night... In that one, you died." I hear a soft cry he tries to stifle, not quite held in. "I woke up and I was so upset. And then--just now, with this... I thought..."

I look down at him in surprise. "How could you...?" I begin to ask, and realize I don't know how to finish the sentence.

He shakes his head and buries it closer against me. His hands are warm and as lovely and strong as I had imagined they might be on my skin. "I don't know, I don't know," he mumbles against me. His fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt. "Don't leave me, Shadow, please. Not now. Not ever."

I try to pull back to see his face, to have this moment etched into my mind forever, but he releases a soft sob and brings me closer.

"Please. I know how crazy this sounds. I don't know what it is, but I've felt you in my heart since you found me. And I can't help these feelings raging in me. I feel like I've known you before, like something..."

"Connects us?"

He stills and pulls back. His eyes shine even brighter than the richest jewel in all the world, and are more beautiful than it could ever be. His cheeks are flushed and damp. The stress has made his lips more full, more lovely.

He searches my face, my eyes, and what he sees in them brings a light to his expression I have never seen. It would still my heart if it beat. It would soothe my soul, if I had one. All I can do is watch, honored, awed, and hold him gently as the most precious gift in all of time, on all this Earth.

"Yes," he whispers reverentially. "It's that exactly." 

"I promise, Ely. I promise to never leave your side again." My whisper seems to echo in my brain. I have said these words before. I can hear myself saying them, the name the only thing changing. Adrian. Solomon. William. 

He shudders as if he feels it too. 

A cycle is turning, churning us with its slow progress. 

Soulmates? Could that be what we are?

His trembling slows, and releases him from its hold. He looks at the attacker. 

"We have to get rid of him." 

I nod and let Ely go reluctantly. I quickly pull the vampire's body to an inconspicuous place where it will burn in the sunlight. The blood is a little harder to clean up, but Ely lives in an area of the city that is more deserted. We manage to wipe the street clean of my activities.

We retire to his house, where I clean up and change into some of Justin's clothes that he has left behind. The clothing seems to remind Ely and he picks up the phone. He rolls his eyes when Justin answers. I hear another man's voice in the background but before I can understand his words, Justin hisses for him to be silent. 

Ely narrows his eyes. "It's over, Justin."

There is a pause. Even across the room, my heightened hearing gives me Justin's response through the phone. 

"You only think it is."

"Don't tell me what--"

"You're full of shit, Ely."

"Why are you such a jerk sometimes?"

Justin lets out a low, annoyed noise. And yet, when he speaks, there is no malice. It seems its own brand of cruelty, this casual conversation saying such hateful words.

"Whatever. Call me on Monday when you change your mind. I'm getting tired of playing these games."

"It isn't a game to me."

"Yeah, I know," Justin says evenly. "That's the problem."

"Don't try to act holier than thou, when you're out with who knows how many in who knows how long."

"Ha! You'll always have the highest score, you whore." The light way Justin says it must feel like a stake in the heart to Ely, who thought Justin loved him.

"You--"

Justin hangs up before Ely can reply. Ely pulls the phone from his ear and peers down at it. I cannot interpret the look upon his face, until he turns to me. Regret, I think I see for a moment, before I realize it has shifted to relief.

Ely smiles at me and it is beautiful—full of energy, love, and life.

I understand, then. He knew all this time Justin wasn't enough; he just didn't know who could replace him.

But now Ely has me.

I feel emboldened.

"My name is--used to be--Aron," I say slowly. "But I like Shadow more." 

I smile and he chuckles softly. He extends his hand, which I take with a soft chuckle of my own. We shake, our hands firm and curled against one another.

"Ely West," he says.

"Pleased to meet you," I jest. 

He grins. "The pleasure's all mine."

Never have I felt so free, or loved. So welcomed and wanted. I beam at this feeling, which can warm a dead heart.

He sits down in a chair by his kitchen table and I do the same. We talk all night—him asking me questions about what I am and how I function, and me explaining with a melancholy tone and regretful demeanor. I repeat several times how I hate who I am now, but he seems fascinated. He asks about all the old legends, how many are true and how many are mere fabrication. I clarify all I can, as well as I can, so that he can know me more intimately than anyone ever could following fictional stories and old wives' tales.

The sun gets close to rising, and I can feel it in my entire being. Sleep tries to overcome me. I hold out as long as I can, and ask quickly about a place to stay. His basement has only one window and the corner never seems to have light at all, he tells me as I make my way downstairs. 

My smile fills my face as I open the door to the understory of his home.

My heightened senses show me the shapes of lumps down here. Furniture, although rather bumpy. I can hear him coming down the stairs behind me, and I turn to ask if he'd like me to lie on the floor, or if I can use a bed. 

Pain overwhelms me, washing all thoughts from my mind. 

I stare at the ceiling, not understanding how I am at the bottom of the stairs. 

The agony inches into every aspect of my being, centering resoundingly on my heart. 

He appears above me, a look on his face that is far more neutral than I saw only seconds before. Where has my Ely gone, with his soft smile, with his warm eyes?

"I really am sorry to do this to you, Shadow, but it's what I do." He lifts his shirt and reaches behind his back. He has a dagger in his hand now; the type I have seen kill countless of my kind. In his beautiful, nimble fingers it whirls into the air and is caught, a spark of gorgeous light in this darkness. "No hard feelings." 

My mind moves slowly through what I am seeing. How can this be? This is not my Ely! He's pure; he's innocent...

He flips the dagger in arcs repeatedly, watching me while I am forced to watch him. What does he seek in my features? There is no emotion on his face, at least not on the surface. But surely my Ely feels something, deep down. Surely he understands what he threatens to do.

"What I have to wonder," he says casually, "is why you didn't talk to that vampire before you killed him." 

He crouches down, and I am confronted with a closer sight of his perfect knees, stretched taut under his skin. He reaches out and pushes my hair back off my forehead. It is a gentle touch, except for the dagger now held in his other hand, angled toward my throat. And except for the pain that stifles my voice, and lays waste to the heart I wish I still had.

His shirt edges back in his movement, and in my periphery I see a small loop at his hip. 

_Ah. So that's where he hid the stake._

He leans down and speaks more quietly into my ear. "If you had, Aron, you may have lived. You worked like a spider in the shadows, keeping away the insects I didn't want to bother to deal with. If you had stayed there, I was willing to let you live." 

He pulls back and searches my eyes. He looks thoughtful, perhaps a bit curious, in those beautiful irises dilated in the dark. His palm presses down at my hairline. "Why did you come out, then? How did you not know?"

In the valleys between the peaks of agony, radiating out from the stake decimating my heart, I can feel the tip of his dagger light against my throat. Against the jugular vein, where stolen blood still flows. Sluggishly, but unlife-giving all the same.

I wish to speak. I wish to tell him that there is only this: my love. 

The stake paralyzes me, and so I cannot. I can only stare up at him, and hope he understands.

I try to speak, to tell him how I feel, to understand. But I can't move. 

I can't do anything. 

"Hmm." He taps the dagger against my skin. A light melody of beautiful death. "You won't fight me, will you?" 

He asks it as statement rather than a question. We both know I pose no threat to Ely, my beautiful Ely.

His hand lifts from my head and before I can brace, he rips the stake from my chest. The pain is worse leaving than arriving. The gaping hole makes a sucking noise, and now the paralysis has left but the knowledge in my body that I will die is even worse.

I cannot help it: I gasp in breath I don't need to breathe, and curl on my side in the fetal position. 

How human of me to be, for as inhuman as I am.

The stake clatters into the dark, and through blood-tearstained eyes, wavy and hazy, I can see it hit against one of my dead brethren. Bodies are piled in the basement taking on a grotesque stained glass effect. The "furniture" that I planned to sleep on. 

I have a wonder: does he keep the bodies here, out of sight of sun, for any particular reason? If he wished to clean, all he need do is open a curtain, and evidence of his murders will waft away as dust does in the wind.

His hand returns, gentle at the front, sliding, then gripping at the back. My hair is grasped in his long, delicate fingers. My neck is forced in an arch back, back, bringing my chin up and my eyes once more to his face.

But though he holds me firmly, there is no malice in the touch.

"So?"

I feel I cannot function properly. Why does my mind keep telling me to breathe, to breathe, simply to breathe, as some sort of coping mechanism that is long dead, like me?

I can speak. Of course I can speak. 

Being undead does not silence me as I lay dying.

I have no answer other than the answer I have always had:

"I love you."

His eyebrows tick up. "I'm aware."

My eyebrows shift down. If he knows this, then what other answer could he possibly want? I can tell him only the truth, and that is the greatest truth I know.

Ely sighs.

The dagger is back at my throat, taut and parallel against the strained curve. 

Ah. He plans to behead me.

He glances at the window, through which we can see nothing due to a blackout curtain. His gaze alights once more upon me. "I'll let you sleep before I do it. As thanks for the intel."

Intel?

It takes me time to understand, but the epiphany is there, simply slowed by this moment.

Those hours we spent bonding over his table; speaking in depth of what it means to be like me, of all the twists and lies and truths.

Oh.

He did not wish to know me. He only needed to know how better to kill my kind.

I close my eyes. 

"You don't look angry," he notes.

I know final death is on its way, there is no doubt. 

My Ely. 

"Of course I am not." 

I hear the serenity in my own voice, and it pleases me. I did not intend to die tonight, nor any night any time soon. There is so much more I wish to do. So many more lives I planned to live. I want to be here for centuries longer.

And yet...

"You have always been my one and only, Ely. If this is what you need from me, I will give it."

In the black behind my eyes, in the absence of his form, I hear my words and feel it echo back to lives I now believe I lived. 

Souls previous, lives lost. All the other times I told him I would never leave him, only to have him betray me in the end. 

But a final death by the hands of my Ely is a far better final death than I otherwise could have. To die by his love, to see his shining eyes and raven hair as my last sight— This is truly a reason to go through rebirth again and again, to end each time in swift betrayal and death.

The sun is rising now and I can barely stay awake. 

My acute hearing tells the story of his breathing: low and calm, and the melody of his heartbeat: slow and even. 

My beautiful Ely, so full of purity and compassion. 

He loves me so much he will wait these long moments for me, so I can sleep before I die.

My unlife drains from me in flowing, stolen blood rolling from my chest. Darkness washes out my already closed vision—full of the swirling shadows from which he formed my name. 

Shadow. 

I shall treasure the name for all the ever I have.

Sleep cannot be held off forever. I let my restraint go; because holding out is pointless now. It always has been. 

This was all meant to be—I was always meant to find my Ely. My pure Ely. And he was meant to be my end.

I am falling into the blackness of sleep now, but I know any dreams I may have in my final moments will be colored as beautiful as the sunrises I used to bask in, before that was lost to me and only the night remained.

And I know those dreams will be of Ely. 

My one and only.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes from my May 31, 2018:
> 
> So, this story is old as hell. I originally wrote it... I honestly don't even know. Early 2000's, maybe late 1990's? I was IN LOVE with V:TM at the time, and LARPed, RPed, tabletopped, all the things. (Malkies ftw! <333) And idk man, I thought it would be fun to write a story set in this sort of vampiric concept, but where the vampire is essentially a stalker and who idolizes and romanticizes someone else, to the point of being blinded to their flaws. I also wanted to play with how the idea of soulmates is thrown around so easily, and for some reason people assume it always has to end in true love, or end well at all.
> 
> In the original version, Ely was Erika, a woman. She played up the feminine frailty thing even more because she played into Shadow's stereotypes. I actually always really liked this story because it's kind of fucked up, so I always wanted to update it to my current sensibilities. I decided to actually follow through on that hope, finally, recently. But in order for me to retain interest in it as a story, I had to shift it to LGBTQIA+ in some form. Since I don't have much m/m planned currently, I thought m/m was appropriate. But for a hot second I almost switched it to f/f after I flipped Erika to Ely.
> 
> Other than that, I did very little changing in the story. I added a little bit more in one part, and slightly shifted the way Ely acted at the end, removed overt references to V:TM like Diablerie and shifted it to more generic terms like cannibalism, and that was it.
> 
> So anyway. Here's apparently my way of saying that even if I write a seemingly sweet love story, there's probably a psychopath and a killer involved and have fun deciding which is who! :D :D :D you're welcome :D
> 
> PS: if I can ever find the creepy old story I wrote when I was like fricking 10 about society being drugged by their food, I'll finish and update that one too because lol wtf little Ais what is your problem?


End file.
